Gordon Campbell on Carly Fiorina and the anti-abortion scam

Gordon Campbell on Carly Fiorina and the
anti-abortion scam

So Carly Fiorina
– hitherto best known as the CEO who drove Hewlett-Packard
to the brink of ruin - was the big winner in the
second Republican candidates debate yesterday. One of her
big debate moments – played unedited and without comment
on RNZ this morning – came when she urged listeners to
view a video that allegedly shows the Planned Parenthood
organization discussing how to profit from the organ
harvesting of aborted fetuses.

Basically, the heavily edited video purports
to show Planned Parenthood’s Dr Deborah Nucatola engaged
in a discussion of organ harvesting for profit. In fact, she
is talking about the perfectly legal, non profit, and
routine practice of organ donation by consent for medical
research, and the re-imbursement for preparing and
transporting the stem tissue involved. Here’s the press statement by Planned
Parenthood:

“In health care, patients sometimes
want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help
lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures
for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have
abortions are no different. At several of our health
centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for
scientific research, and we do this just like every other
high-quality health care provider does — with full,
appropriate consent from patients and under the highest
ethical and legal standards. There is no financial benefit
for tissue donation for either the patient or for Planned
Parenthood. In some instances, actual costs, such as the
cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are
reimbursed, which is standard across the medical
field.

“A well funded group established for the
purpose of damaging Planned Parenthood’s mission and
services has promoted a heavily edited, secretly recorded
videotape that falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s
participation in tissue donation programs that support
lifesaving scientific research. Similar false accusations
have been put forth by opponents of abortion services for
decades. These groups have been widely discredited and their
claims fall apart on closer examination, just as they do in
this case.”

Much of the
controversy stems from a lack of widespread public knowledge
of who buys and sells fetal tissue, what it is used for, and
what the law allows regarding its purchase and sale.
Scientists have been using such material in medical research
for decades to study (and possibly develop cures for) a
number of diseases and medical ailments, but commercial
fetal tissue transactions take place in something of a legal
gray zone: agencies may sell fetal tissue that has been
“donated” for that purpose (through abortion), but they
may not profit from it. According to federal law they may
only charge for the processing and shipping involved in
transferring the material from donor to purchaser, but the
law doesn’t regulate how much they may charge.

Give
the paltry amounts that Nucotala is shown mentioning on the
video – “$30 to $100 per specimen” it is clear she is
talking only about the re-imbursement for the
transportation costs, and not any level of profiteering from
organ harvesting. Moreover, the brochure that features in
the video that does purport in one line to promote a profit
potential, is not a Planned Parenthood document – as the
video claims - but is from Stem Express, a firm that
processes and transports the stem tissue to medical
researchers around the world.

OK… so the video is a
fraudulent effort. Yet touting it was one of the main
reasons the pundits are now saying that Fiorina’s debate
performance was based on substance, not generalities or
metaphors. Should we be surprised that Fiorina has peddled
this anti-abortion scam in prime time – while projecting
herself as the feisty pro-woman candidate? Not really. As
the New York Times has reported, Fiorina has deliberately fudged and
distorted her disastrous tenure as CEO of
Hewlett-Packard as well.

Donald Trump, at least,
managed to get the Hewlett-Packard flaw in her CV dead
right.

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